Yesterday we paid a visit to the Cosmonauts exhibition in the Science Museum, London. It was a great opportunity to see some actual hardware, documents, memorabilia and artwork from the Soviet era, much of which had never been outside the former Soviet Union before. The main highlights for me were:
The LK lunar lander engineering model. Seeing it up close and personal was amazing. It was larger than I expected, but still I would have admired any cosmonaut who had flown it down the lunar surface and back alone.
The Vostok 6 re-entry module. Interesting to see how much space there was inside compared to a Mercury or Gemini spacecraft, and to note how the entire interior was covered in some felt-like material.
The Voskhod 1 re-entry module. Nothing really conveys the sheer insanity of cramming three men into one of those things the way that standing next to it and seeing just how cramped in is in there with three couches does.
In addition there were engineering models of some of the early Sputnik and Luna probes, as well as a Lunokhod rover and some Soyuz and Mir materials. AN excellent exhibition and worth the price of admission for space nuts such as ourselves. Any of you who can get to London, the exhibition costs £14 and tickets can be booked here:
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/cosmonauts.aspx
